Airtel Money is set to allow M-Pesa users to transact on its cash tills and paybill numbers starting March. This is part of the broader effort to enhance mobile money interoperability and allow customers on rival platforms to make payments seamlessly across networks.
Airtel Money Interoperability
Airtel Money MD Anne Kinuthia-Otieno confirmed that plans are at final stages to facilitate payment interoperability. The initiative will be implemented in the first quarter of the year and will allow M-Pesa users to transact on Airtel Money’s merchant payment system, Lipa na Airtel Money.
“Currently our customers can pay into the competition’s paybills or tills and now it’s going to be the other way round where any customer from the competition can also pay to any of the Airtel Money paybills and tills,” Kinuthia-Otieno says.
This will remove a barrier that has been in place since April 2022 when Safaricom enabled M-Pesa to receive payments from other platforms via Lipa na M-Pesa. But Airtel Money customers have not been able to enjoy the same on the Airtel platform.
Central Bank of Kenya
The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) has been pushing for seamless cash transfers across rival platforms. This is in line with the three phase National Payments Strategy. The first phase allowed person to person (P2P) transfers between M-Pesa and Airtel Money in 2018. The second phase is the one being implemented now which focuses on merchant payments across different networks.
The third phase will be full interoperability of agent networks where customers can withdraw or deposit money at any agent outlet regardless of the mobile money provider.
“To ensure interoperability fully works we need to move to agent interoperability where customers don’t need to care about which firm owns a given agent shop. Customers should be able to withdraw or deposit money regardless of the outlet,” adds Kinuthia-Otieno.
Market Impact and CompetitionAirtel Money’s interoperability is coming at a time when the company has been gaining market share in mobile money. According to the latest CA data Airtel Money’s market share has grown to 7.6% in the last 3 months to September 2024 from 6.6% in June. This has eaten into Safaricom’s M-Pesa dominance which dropped from 93.4% to 92.3% in the same period.
Airtel Money growth has been steady, its market share has grown from 2.8% in June 2023 to 6.6% in June 2024 while M-Pesa has been declining from 97.1% to 93.4% in the same period.